Archive for February, 2014

Episode 22 – Futility

The pains of loss, and trauma surge through my mind like the torrents of great oceans. Swept away I am in all the loss and pain, even loneliness of my long but short life. My life is unenviable. My existence almost unpalatable. My skin aches for touch and warmth to ease this deep pain inside of me. Ever since I was young I fretted what I was. What I am. Every day felt like an intangible joke at my expense. “Whoops, we told you wrong”, I hear them say as they laugh. My heart wrought me to tears as I think about all the things others took for granted that I’d been denied. I even thought for a moment about a friend I’d once lost. She was transgender like me, but never had the opportunity to make that revelation before life could happen. A strange privilege to have when I was naught privileged in many other ways. My career of mediocrity as a fine example of that. Because I was a woman who used to have a dick, I was just not good enough for my accomplishments to garner me advancement. She’d married a woman once before, and had children. All of that life was taken from her when she told the world, “I’m a woman, and not a man”.

And then eventually the burden of feeling alone made her give up. She was like my sister. So like me, and we seemed to understand each other so well. When she died… I almost envied her. Almost. I sought all my life to feel right with my body, and it took me 22 years to accomplish that, a task which Krista failed to see through. It was not her failure, but one of the world’s. A world in which a transgender woman can be made responsible for their own life and death while it’s being controlled by the system in power. I sort of looked up to her. I kind of liked her too. I’d have taken her on a date if I’d had the chance. So yeah, I was a little bit taken by her, and I thought she was beautiful. So yeah, when she died… It hit me pretty hard. I cried for days. I didn’t know her terribly well, or not as well as I’d like but well enough to feel loss when she severed her connection with this world. I don’t blame her, really I don’t. I’ve felt myself only a few steps from her road more than a few times, once or twice driven there by my friends or those who I thought were my friends. I still recount the taunts and just inconsiderate things that were said. “I can’t see you as a woman”, “You know God didn’t make you that way”, and so on and so forth until I cried myself to vomiting over a porcelain bowl filled with noxious water. I remembered times when I was 11 and in the early throws of puberty where I cried that way into the commode over the way my body was, wailing “Damn you, God, why didn’t you make me a girl. I don’t want this. Please fix me.”

It was many years later that I hated doctors instead for giving me that arbitrary designation, without giving me the right to choose. I lost the ability to have faith in the divine, partially because of the bigotry and hate of the people of faith around me. Because I couldn’t have faith in the benevolence of a being that would let evil befall the innocent, unwashed, and unknowing. I couldn’t have faith in a system that would make a being like me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate myself. I just hate the lot I was given. Sometimes. I couldn’t forgive a system that could make me different and not stand and help me when that difference made me a pariah. I hated it because the people who stood for those values were themselves hypocrites who saw the would with blinders, unable to see their own indifference. All I ever saw of faith was the ties that bind and wrought blood and tears. Those children in that formerly closed Catholic School nearly killed me. Children?! Children nearly killed me for my difference! And those same God ordained systems had condemned a dear friend to eternity because she could not bear the suffering they forced upon her. I stand and push myself to my feet, now trembling in anger.

“FUCK YOU, WORLD! I will not let you drive me into the same abyss as so many others like me. I will not let you defeat me…. FUCK YOU, YOU ARROGANT BASTARD! This is my life, my time, my body, and my voice, and you’ll never take me… NEVER, YOU FUCKING HEARING ME! NEVER!”, I scream at the top of my lungs into the sky, trembling more with tears streaming down my face. “FUCK YOU, WORLD! WOOOOO!”, I hear screamed from beside me. I turn my face down and see Fallon and Sylphie both crying and smiling at me. I break down into further tears as they wrap their arms around me and I collapse to the ground again. I can do nothing but cry and whimper into their arms as Sylphie cradles me a bit, rocking back and forth with Fallon’s arms around us both. “Profound sentiments, my other self. Profound sentiments, indeed. Scream it all out if you must”, Sylphie says into my ear.

Leaning me back, with tears still streaming down my face she continues, “I’m about to embarrass you for a good cause, Yuzu. (Yuzu looks at her blankly and shakes her head). Do you know why Yuzu fell for you?” Fallon turns bright red, and slaps her hand over her mouth, but doesn’t try to stop Sylphie. Sylphie grins really big, “When she first met you she was sort of off put by you. She’d never known a transsexual before. You didn’t know this, but your co-workers introduced you as Dr. Tranny behind your back, and they did this in the new employee orientation with Yuzu before they brought her into the lab.” Fallon looks at me and shrugs, “Sorry, Alira… Never had the heart to tell you”, she grunts in disgust remembering the nasty things they said about me. Sylphie resumes her story, “So Yuzu pictured this gaudy image in her head of a man in a lab coat, with a chest full from a stuffed bra, and a really out-of-place wig. Like something out of documentary, or a really bad TV trope. When they brought her back to the lab, she looked around and only saw one normal looking woman and two men in the room. Her escort, our boss walked up behind her and introduced you, and she was stunned by not only your beauty, but by how normal you looked. She actually got a little excited for a moment when Dr. Alira Roe was introduced to her, and she shook your hand.”

Fallon puts her hand over Sylphie’s mouth, “Stop, I thought you weren’t able to remember our experiences anymore.”
She looks her sternly in the eyes, to which Sylphie responds, “That’s only true while we’re apart.”

Fallon gets really angry and stands up to walk out but is stopped by Sylphie. “Please, you need to hear this, and she especially does. And you know why”, Sylphie says while tugging on Fallon’s hand to make her reseat herself.

She sighs, just like Yuzu always did when she knew she’d lost, “Fine.” Sylphie gives a very child-like smile and turns back to me. “Now, where was I… Oh, yes… Okay, so that night after the lab she laid awake thinking about you. She was utterly enthralled while also deeply abject to feeling that way about you. (At this point Fallon is very red-faced and covering most of her face.) She was struggling with how attracted she felt to you after only just meeting you and shaking your hand, but couldn’t pull herself to let it be because you’re a transsexual. She had a lot of contrived notions in her mind that she didn’t know how to deal with. She worried herself so much she didn’t sleep that night, thinking about you that much.” “EEPP!”, squeals Fallon, “You should’ve skipped that part”, she says motioning at Sylphie very embarrassed. Sylphie chuckles at her, and Fallon groans and turns her head down, “Finish it already, will ya… Damn.”

“Well, the very next day she looked horribly haggard and sleep deprived. And as soon as she walked through the door, you noticed and brought her coffee. ‘Keep ’em coming?’, you nudged her, to which she just tiredly nodded after taking a sip. The coffee that you made was delicious, and it helped pep her up pretty good for having not slept a wink. (Sylphie chuckles), So she watched you carefully all day, watching for when you’d bring her the next cup. And as she watched you she noticed how kind and cordial you were to everyone, even helping some of the same people she’d heard in the break room making lewd comments about you. Towards the end of the day you’d brought her so many cups that she felt bad, and thought she’d ought to go to the break room and a get her own cup. She poured a very full cup when the smell about it caught her as off. She sniffed it and the aroma was different, and then she sipped it. It was terrible, nasty coffee, nothing like what you’d brought her”, Sylphie says and is interrupted Fallon. “No, Sylph, that coffee was fucking atrocious, I don’t know how anyone drank it. After drinking Alira’s coffee all day I nearly barfed from the flavor. Get it right”, Fallon says emphatically.

“Okay, okay, yes… It was atrocious, I can agree to that. Why do you think I… Erma, Alira didn’t drink it”, Sylphie adds.

“Anywho, so she dumped it into the sink next to the machine and hastily returned to the lab. She watched you, trying to figure out where you got the coffee so she could get some more. You were really busy doing a spectrum analysis on a meteoric sample, when she decided to yawn really loud so you’d hear her. You noticed, and left the test running for a moment and went to a large bag by your cubicle and pulled a gigantic thermos out of it. Yuzu was taken aback by this, so she watched carefully as you poured two cups of coffee into blue plastic mugs, and brought them over.

‘Hangin’ in there, Dr. Kurosawa?’, you gently nudged.

‘Yeah, strangely. What is this?’, Yuzu asked holding up the cup to you, ‘I tried the break room coffee and thought I was going to die.’

‘Oh, you tried that stuff’, you said to her and chuckled a bit, ‘Oh God, you have my condolences. I don’t drink that junk, I’d rather die. No I made this at home.’

‘But, I hate coffee usually, only drinking it when I have to. But this stuff actually tastes good. In fact, I like it’, she said to you emphatically. You pulled me… Derp… I mean Yuzu aside, ‘I soak fresh beans from my local bakery in alcohol based vanilla extract for a week, then put them in my veggie drier and grind them and keep them in an a decanter. Then when I brew the coffee, I brew it with straight, unflavored creamer, and 14 lumps of caramel from the same bakery which melt in the hot coffee, and I also add about a quarter a cup of sugar to the blend just throwing it right in with the ground coffee. If it comes out too syrupy I just put a little more milk in it to taste, and put it in the thermos and go.’ She just looked into her cup of coffee and thought about all the things you did to make it taste so good, and then looked up at you confused. ‘So why go through all that effort?’, she asked you.

You chuckled a little, ‘Coffee is so flipping gross to drink, but energy drinks make me physically ill. So I tinkered for a few months and stumbled onto this bakery that make crepes and coffee. The caramel brew had lumps of caramel that would melt into it as it brewed, and I tried some but something was still missing. And damn, the heartburn it would cause. So I tried a few vanilla blends and it still wasn’t quite right. So then I made my own with extract, and the all milk brewing stuff was my idea. It was sorta a pain in the ass trying to find a good coffee maker that would let me use milk without issues. And I finally came up with something I could stand drinking, albeit it’s a bit rich.’ She looks at you totally floored and surprised. She also hated coffee, and energy drinks from that ill-feeling, and for the first time she started to relate to you as a normal person.

Then she abruptly remembered she had a dinner date and movie with friends that night a week from then and blurted it out to you. You accepted her invite, and she called her friends to tell them. That next week you went to see the new sci-fi flick and her friends hated it, but both of you were deeply enthralled. It was so funny… The whole dinner date she watched her friends nervously, totally waiting for them to pick up something odd and go, “Why’d you bring a tranny?” But her friends had no clue. They just acted like she was one of the girls, in fact they were super chatty throughout dinner. Yuzu was still unsure about how to feel about you, and was just trying to get a feel for you. The fact that no one but her, and you knew was something that worried her. But as would be expected, nothing unusually happened or was detected. You even went to the restroom as a group during the film and it didn’t at all seem weird to you that you were in the women’s restroom together. It just felt normal, which you weren’t expecting. Your old world view was quickly evaporating. Then after the movie you just didn’t want to leave her. You wanted to stay near her for some reason, though the reason why was unintelligible to you.

As you two walked out, and said goodbye to your friends she said, ‘Heya, Dr. Roe, you want to do anything else? Like, I’m not really tired and I don’t want to go home just yet.’

‘Well, my place isn’t totally clean right now if you don’t mind?’, you replied.

The whole ride back you just listened to random songs off her smartphone’s music play list, even sang along and talked about them a few times. She knew that you didn’t know that she knew you were trans*, and was still surprised but how ‘normal’ it all was. She was happy to have you over and you two went to your tiny apartment you shared with a couple who had no children. They were asleep so you both just sat in the living-room for a bit talking about lab stuff, and then moved to the bedroom to watch another much older Sci-fi movie. Yuzu’s heart was beating so fast being so close to you. She could smell you and was getting almost high off of it. (Yuzu covers her face and peers at me through her fingers for a moment, while sitting next to me.) As the movie was coming to a close, she could no more resist the urge to touch you, and she reached up and ran her fingers through your hair. You twisted and torqued like you were in pain for a moment, and she retracted. But she noticed you had goosebumps all over your arm, and she touched you again. You had the same reflex again, but softened quickly almost like you were melting from her touch. She pulled your ponytail down and turned you away from her and massaged your scalp with her nails and fingertips while playing with your hair.

You seemed to be in ecstasy. She laid you back, though, and as soon as she saw your face she saw that you were crying.

She didn’t know how to feel, ‘Why are you crying’, you said. You just shook your head. And then the cruelty of those around you towards you occurred to her, and it was then she connected her old world view of those like you and it all made sense. In only a week, she saw the most happy, candid and caring person she’d met since she graduated as a Doctorate of Astrophysics. She’d also had her first taste of transphobic bigotry. She felt innately that it was wrong, but couldn’t understand why. She pulled you over into her arms and cradled you and pet your face, and you trembled terribly and cried in her arms, and whimpered. Yuzu even started to cry a bit seeing your tears.

She just thought to herself, ‘This kind and generous being had been so ostracized by the world that a mere human touch, which she’d likely been deprived for a while, could reduce her to tears so quickly.’ I thought… Or Dita thought, ‘What kind of world is it that could do this to such a gentle being.’ And as you whimpered and moaned from every gentle touch she gave you, she fell in love with you. So in love with you that the only thing she could think of was being folding into you, as one being, so you’d never be alone. Forever”, Sylphie finishes her story with a big smile, and Fallon is holding me as I cry into her arms all over again.

I chimed in, while still crying but now sitting up on my own, “Oh! How well I remember that night. How my heart ached for human touch as Fallon caressed me. Up until that point, I had to deal with my transphobic co-workers alone. And this is the last place I’d have chosen to work. I just couldn’t make any other opportunities materialize. Moreover, I’d been dumped a couple of months back for the 3rd straight time when I came out to my partner that I was transsexual. I went out and had dinner alone every once in a while, and watched movies alone. I felt so alone that it was damn near unbearable at times. When she reached out to me that night, every emotion flooded out of me. Every single one. But that next morning when I woke up in her arms, I was the happiest I’d been in years. For the first few minutes she played with my hair I choked back the tears, but the dam just broke. I didn’t have the strength to hold it in any more. And that was also the moment I fell in love with Yuzu.”

“I’d let popular misconceptions mischaracterize you when I first met you, but that day, I stopped seeing you as a transsexual, and started seeing you as a woman”, Fallon says, then continues, “You did come out to me later, and I just accepted it and took no issue, though I didn’t tell you I already knew. From that point on, I didn’t care what you were, or what the world thought about me and you… (Fallon laughs) Hell, the next day I made the point of planting a huge kiss directly on your lips in front of the entire lab. Though to be honest, I was just trying to shut them up. A few of the guys had hit on me, commenting about how attractive I was and when I told them I liked girls they said, ‘Hey, you never know until you try, you might like it. I mean, isn’t that what science is about, remaining neutral until proven otherwise’. But, I just didn’t need to prove it. No one ever told a straight man or woman to try sleeping with the same-sex. Don’t know why they felt they could. No matter. Alira, I love you”, Yuzu says to me and smiles while petting my face.

A few extra tears flowed down my face as I heard that, “I love you, too.”

“Hey, hey now, you two… No need to be a soppy mess. We are all here now. Sure, the world isn’t perfect. Far from it. But, that’s not really a reason to fall apart now is it… Also, ‘New ability 101’ time”, Sylphie says to me. She whips out her hand and with a glow of light and static electrical energy she materializes a cup of coffee in her hand, and then another in the other. The cup seems strangely familiar. “Wait, those are my blue coffee mugs… How did you…”, I say but I’m interrupted.

“Energy to Matter conversion. Using your two slightly differing knowledge sets I determined that the exotic matter pulls on Zero-Point energy. As I am made of the two of you, I figured that out. That said, it costs much more energy to make it than is actually contained in the object, but it’s far less wasteful than making it otherwise. Most we can do though is make small objects, and conversions on small scales in our bodies. Our potential comes from the amount of those particles we possess. My assessment is that we were in a high concentration gradient when we were encapsulated in space-time. Not only that, but we stripped much of that gradient from Amma when she touched us, before we disappeared, which is why she came out before and is much weaker as a tempest. We were closer to the event horizon, which was actually in-between Yuzu and Alira’s bodies. As we were pulled in and phased out, we pulled most of her particles with us. Which is why we’re now 3 beings, or able to become 3 different tempests… We had more than enough energy to make 3 whole people”,

Sylphie says then snaps her fingers and suddenly our bodies glow so bright we can’t see.

It’s warm and it tingled…

I feel strange, and I feel like my clothing and entire body are changing somehow.

The same sort of static energy that we saw before has engulfed us, and as it slowly dims I notice that the world around looks slightly different.

I look down at my hand, and it’s huge… Or it seems huge compared to before… “What did you… OH MY GOD!”, I shriek as I hear my voice. My voice sounds strange but also familiar… A voice I hadn’t heard in 11 years. I look over at Fallon, and she’s a fully grown adult and it’s hard for me to tell if she’s Yuzuho or Fallon. She looks like an older hybrid of the two. Sylphie is Sylphie, as she looks like a slightly smaller adult hybrid of the earlier form when we were fused. “What did you do? How did you do that?”, I say looking at myself, “Hey you even made new clothing for us.”

“Oh yeah, I pulled those uniforms from an idea you had in your minds. As for your bodies, I just accelerated the conversion that was maturing your bodies faster than normal, and brought it to its completed state. You should have about as much power as you had before. Unlike normal tempests, though, we don’t get weaker as we reach maturity as the particle density doesn’t drop sufficiently to cause a change”, Sylphie says handing us the cups of coffee. Me and Fallon look at each other and then into the cups and sip, and then simultaneously gasp with surprise.

“This is my coffee blend from before!”, I say to her almost stuttering at the end.

“While we are together we have the joint computational power of 3 minds, with no lag time. I figured out what I needed and made it. Though you two haven’t figured out how to do that quite yet”, she says smirking confidently while knocking on her head. We both drink the coffee and reminisce. Leaning against each other we think about the fondness we feel, and the fact that we once shared a body. Something we’d always dreamed of, though never spoke of. Thinking about how we’d had a child what was literally the a fusion of the two of us. It was a strange, but also pleasant feeling.

Sylphie sips a couple of times then chugs the coffee, and makes a loud satisfied gasp, “Well, shall we go and get reacquainted with the others again? They may not recognize us at first, but it’s time we bring this part of our lives to closure. Don’t you say?” Standing up, she grabs our hands and picks us up to our feet. She walks to the door to the stairwell, only turning back to snap her fingers as she dematerialized the cups we were using, “Com’on.” We all hold hands in a chain as we walk down those several flights of stairs, and out we walk back onto the medical ward floor. Dr. Alirasdottir, Bjorn and Danielle and several of the other medical staff are standing out there, as well as a couple of maintenance guys trying to fix the door I broke. They don’t notice us at first walking hand-in-hand, Sylphie holding mine, and me holding Fallon’s walking down the hall. Then Danielle turns for a moment and does a double take as she recognizes me… Then, Yuzu, and Sylphie. Bjorn is taken aback and speechless by what he is seeing as the three adult versions of us walk down the hall towards them, hand-in-hand.

Sylphie lets go of my hand as we now stand directly in front of Amma, who with the back-lighting of the hallway lights reminds me of how she used to look a little bit. Sylphie salutes Bjorn in a very peppy, energetic way, “I’ve brought them back as you ordered, Sir”. He salutes then drops his arm and chuckles shaking his head. I can tell Amma is smiling to see me again though her hands which cover her mouth, just as I was, but perhaps I look like a hybrid of teenage Alira and adult Alira from before breach. Danielle reaches out to me with both arms, putting her hands on both shoulders and pulling me closer to her. She wraps her arms around my neck firmly but gently and whispers into my ears, “Welcome back, my kooky granddaughter. You’ve changed so much, so fast. (She pulls away a bit). Going to give an old woman a heart attack with all these surprises. Why don’t you give me a rest already, Kiddo”, she chuckles.

Sylphie looks at Amma and gives a sulky face because she didn’t get a hug. Amma gives a very endearing smile to her, and then almost lunges at her and gives her a big hug, “I guess this makes me a great-grandmother of sorts now, doesn’t it? Though, this is probably the strangest family reunion on the face of God’s green creation.”

“Hallo, Amma!”, Sylphie says.

“I haven’t been called that in quite a while. Welcome to the family, kitten. Why’s it that my family is always the strangest thing you’d ever lay your eyes on”, Danielle chuckles again while wiping a tear from one eye.

“Indeed, it is. Amma, you know I remember everything they do as long as they’re close to me like this, right?”, Sylphie says.

“Humph, well then… Maybe next time I can get you to fix the screen door when it falls off the hinges. Al, you never did get around to that, did you?”, Danielle says to me.

“I ‘spose not”, I laugh nervously to her.

“As for the matter of Ed. It needs to be addressed and addressed now”, Sylphie says strongly with a very serious tone.

“Honey, there isn’t much we can do. We can lose our heads and storm the fort. That isn’t what Eduardo would want you doing. We have to think this through and not do anything rash. He sacrificed himself to get me out of there. Though technically I did die…”, Danielle says.

“No, that won’t do. I’ve already lost one father. I’m not going to lose another”, I say in a firm tone.

Amma shrugs at me, and puts one hand on my shoulder, “Look, I know you mean well, but what goods challenging the sleeping giant going to do but get you killed.”

I pull away from her causing her arm to fall slackly to her side, “No, Amma. I’ve run my entire life. Running scared from every bully or homophobic dick-cheese I ever met. And crying in Yuzu’s arms all the while because I couldn’t stand up for myself. It’s time I stopped running away. Neither you nor Yuzuho can protect me for my entire life. It’s not fair!”, I exclaim.

Yuzu wraps herself around my right arm tightly and sets her head on my shoulder like she does when she sees me serious about something, and when she worries. She feels overly warm to the touch.

“Bornin, I hate to say it, but I believe Mrs. Green it right here. There just isn’t the resources for our island nation to launch an all out assault on the heart of Neo Zion where he’s being held, and even if I could get you in there, I’d not be able to get you out”, Bjorn says in a very sombre, serious tone.

“I’m staying out of this… I’m a doctor, and I’ll not condone any action that causes loss of life”, Dr. Arisdottir says then walks back into her clinic setting her medical tablet in the wall charger on the way in.

“Look, there has to be something we can do… Three powerful tempests of the likes that no one has ever seen are standing right here. There has to be something, anything”, Sylphie pleads.

Fallon clutches me even tighter and I can sense that she’s crying a little as she hides her face against my shoulder. “I don’t care how I have to get there, I’m going. There is nothing you can say or do that can stop me. This world has already taken enough from me. No more!”, I shout frustrated and emotional.

“Whoa now, child. Calm down, this is not the time for our tempers to flare. We shouldn’t be taking this out on each other”, Danielle says to me trying to calm me, “I’ve already lost enough people in my life… If I lost any one of you now… Well… I don’t know what I’d do.”

“We need to maintain our calm, and realize that the situation can’t be changed and that any attempt will lead to bloodshed. It’s suicide to think of going into the heart of the beast for one man. He made his choice, and we should trust that what he did was for the best”, Bjorn adds trying to calm the situation.

“Bjorn, no offense, but it’s the inaction of good people which is why there is so much pain and suffering in the world. Should we stand idly by while more harm is done. Neo Zion needs to fall. It’s far overdue. How long are we going to let them have a strangle hold on our world. Do you think going into space or hiding behind this shield is going to keep you safe forever? Didn’t they just kill Danielle and everyone on one of your most powerful ships in one fell-swoop?”, Sylphie begins to shout angrily at Bjorn.

“Enough, babe, we should all go have a stiff drink and calm down before this gets out of hand”, Danielle commandingly, but gently says.

Fallon pushes me away from her, almost slamming me into Amma and starts to shout, “What is wrong with you people?! You’re so eager to go off to your deaths?! Do you not see what will happen to you if you go there?! I don’t want to watch anymore death… I’M FUCKING DONE!… Don’t get me involved in this… None of you have any idea what I’ve gone through, or the people and things I’ve lost since I’ve been thrown into this crazy fucking world?!?! DO you? (Everyone stares on shocked with blank faces.) You don’t… I was adopted into a family that treated me like a commodity, that sold my body to the highest bidder to be a disposable field medic. They never cared if I made it back. They knew, secretly that I was a lesbian, and they used it to force my compliance. To peddle me out for wars and fights they themselves started with rival factions. They only got me into the academy because they wanted the rank and prestige that my accomplishments would merit them in favors from the church. I watch men blow each other to pieces and tear each other limb from limb with their tempests… I watched soldiers treat the captured like chattel. I’M FUCKING DONE WITH WAR AND BLOODSHED AND HERE YOU ARE TRYING TO START ONE!!!! War is heinous, and it’s never right, even if you think you’re doing it for a good cause. And Sylphie! You should fucking know this intimately, if you know me as you say you do. Or are you too jaded by Alira’s desire to reclaim lost time? Revenge will reap only disaster. War, violence and bloodshed will never bring back those who are lost. Nor will it ever make right the bloodshed done in its name… You have no idea the horrors I’ve seen. You don’t know what it’s like to revive people who’ve been so thoroughly traumatized that they’ve lost the will to continue living… I don’t want to watch them… (Crying profusely now)… Watch them put your mangled remains into garbage bags while they toss you into unmarked mass graves… I WON’T! If you want to march off to your deaths, do it on your FUCKING own. I want no part in wanton violence and slaughter.”

Fallon stomps away crying, and I’m overwhelmed by her reaction. I’ve never seen her get mad, more than just frustrated. And I feel guilty that I’d not taken the time to understand and know what had happened to Fallon since she’d arrived in this world. Felt guilty for only thinking of my selfish desire to save Ed, and for ignoring her distress as she clung to my arm.

I started to cry a bit as I called to her, “YUZU!”

“No, Alira. Stay away from me… I don’t want to lose you again… Don’t hurt me like that again. Please… (She’s sobbing now) Just… Just go away… Please… I love you… Just… Fuck”, she turns and runs away from me. I start to run after her but she activates her tempest and disappears in a streak of gold light.

I turn around and Slyphie is sobbing too, because of her memories of what Fallon experienced at the hands of her adopted family. Amma is holding her in her arms, and Bjorn is leaning against the wall with one hand against his face with a very sombre look. The maintenance men test the door and leave just staring back in confusion about what just happened, a little shaken by it. All the medical staff are hiding in the sick bay, waiting for the argument to blow over, and I’m shaking and crying myself again…

I’m simultaneously angry, sad, frustrated, and ready to beat down the door of Zion for what they did to us. Then the strangest sensation comes over me. A strange sensation of Deja Vu… It’s so powerful it overcomes everything I’m feeling. Even though we’re more than 2 meters apart we all sense each other… And we sense it… An immensely weird sense of Deja Vu. Every tempest nearby looks up at the sky towards space. We can all sense it… All at once… This ominous dark spot seems to be pinged out there in deep space. It feels familiar, though we can’t grasp what it is… But it’s moving…

“Where are you going in such a hurry, mysterious object. Com’ere, lets look at you.”, Sylphie says while stretching an arm out to the sky…

Then my vision blurs a little and my head aches as Sylphie taps our minds to understand this object.

She lets go of my mind.

Me and Fallon can both feel the tension and fear rising in her. She falls back against Bjorn who catches her. Her face is white as a sheet, and she can barely stand… “No… No fucking way… No… Noo…”, Slyphie says as sheer terror is shown on her face clear as day. “Wha… (she pants…) Is going on…”, she says as she collapses… She’s laying on the floor mumbling something indiscernibly. I run up to her and cradle her in my arms, “Sylphie, what did you see… What did you sense. Tell me.” “No… … No… We’ve got to… Just…”, and Sylphie passes out. “Sylphie!”, I say while trying to shake her awake. I can here her mind mumbling about some sort of danger, but I can’t make it out. Fallon’s mind disappears from my awareness as she runs off somewhere I can’t reach her. What is this feeling I’m sensing… It’s like a great black hole in the sky in deep space. It’s ominous and confusing. Bjorn looks at me, as well as Danielle. “You sense it as well?”, Danielle asks… We all nod… The doctor comes out to look at Slyphie, and two nurses hoist her up onto a bed. I follow them in, and the doctor scans her and sighs in relief, “She just fainted. But she’s exhausted as well… We should let her be for now.” I just back out of the room slowly and then fall against the wall farthest from the door and look up at the sky. “What is it”, I ask myself as I search this strange and familiar but ominous feeling… I know I’ve sensed this before, but for some reason the memory is out of my reach like it was erased from my mind. At least partially. I’m confused. Worried. Thinking about Fallon, and still trying to swallow this guilt.

Reneta Xian (Scian)

This is my blog where I write stories from my perspective as a trans* person, stories that give represent the GLBT community in my favorite genre, Science Fiction!

Getting started with Rene…

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